Second Bank Enables Payment Via Twitter

Second Bank Enables Payment Via Twitter

Indian bank ICICI has launched a service to allow customers to make payments using Twitter.

The bank has launched icicibankpay, which allows customers who register to send a direct message to the twitter handle @icicibank with the recipient's username and the amount to be transferred.

The person receiving the money does not need to be an ICICI bank customer and the service is also available to any Twitter user in France with a bank account, regardless of which bank they belong to.

Jean-Yves Forel, Group BPCE commercial banking and insurance CEO said at the time, that the bank was the first to offer individuals the ability to transfer money with a simple tweet.

He added that this is the first of many uses of social media, opening up a "whole new range of payment possibilities on the social networks".

The most common use of Twitter is to engage banks with customers. Nationwide building society, for example, provides a 24 hour service to address customers' questions via Twitter.

A meeting back in 2009 that consisted of bankers, social media experts and technologists at The Financial Services Club revealed how the sector, which traditionally leads technology innovation, viewed social media technology at that time.

The comments that came up in the meeting were: "Twitter is interesting but I do not know why. It is interesting because people are using it"; "Banks will have to get used to the idea that some customers will want to use the web" and "Social media is a good way of engaging with employees as well as customers".